Thursday, July 14 - The sun did make a showing after last night's rain storm, and the view from our lake point was breath-taking.
Thursday morning, we got up early and were hooked up and on the road by 8:20 a.m. We had a little mishap when we stopped for breakfast. Joe drove through a vacant parking lot to get back to Hardee's for breakfast, which was really rough. We rocked and rolled back onto the highway, and the cabinet doors above the sink came open and dishes came flying out. We heard lots of crashing -- I didn't even turn my head to see what disaster was taking place. But when we got parked at Hardee's, only one plate had broken (although several plates as well as plastic bowls had hit the sink and floor). So we picked up the pieces, swept the floor, and put everything back in place. It could have been a lot worse.
I forgot to mention that yesterday Joe had to get the ladder down to wash the bugs off the windows -- he hasn't had to do much of that lately. And he got it down a second time to retape his window because it had started whistling again. The tape from Texas had finally come off, but the whistle is still there somewhere.
Back to today, we continued on through South Carolina and passed Clemson University, then we crossed the Seneca River back into Georgia.
We cut across the top corner of Georgia, for about 10 miles, then we hit the North Carolina state line about 12:30. We really got into the hills here, I think we were in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountain Range. We found a nice pull-off for lunch, with mountain views and a waterfall straight across the ravine. The elevation here was about 3,000 ft., and it was 79 degrees. Nice!
This road was really snaky, with some long grades and some "holy sh*t" curves. Joe said it was the crookedest road he had ever driven, and it kept Lucille busy mapping all the crooks and turns. It was narrow, too, and then we came upon a sign that said "road narrows ahead." Joe said he already had one wheel on the yellow line and the other on the white line. On one corner, a car came toward us across the middle line and Joe had to get off the road a little. Also, there were boulders on some of the curves that jutted out almost to the white line. My side mirror took the leaves off the foliage on some of those boulders.
As we came down this mountain, we came through the thriving metropolis of Highlands, which was full of the 65+ crowd. It was a pretty little mountain town, with lots of shops and restaurants.
After we passed through this town, we followed a rocky, winding creek down the mountain. It was on Joe's side, so I never could get a picture (I just had a rock wall on my side). At one point we were at an elevation of 3820. There were a few waterfalls as well. It was nice to be in the mountains again, and out of the hot, muggy weather we've been experiencing.
We crossed into Tennessee about 3:30, having given up on finding a campground in North Carolina. We didn't run the A/C all day, but by the time we got to our campground around 4:00, it was 90 degrees. We camped at a National Forest campsite on a little creek, a very nice spot, and there were even fireflies out when it got dark. We passed an area a few miles back where they were releasing water from the dam for rafting on the river. There were bus-loads of people there, but it looked like they were all having a good time. We did see a few rafts on the river.
After Joe and Michael finished their inspection of the turntable and we concluded this tour, we headed back to the house to get ready to go to a cook-out at friends of Dana and Michael's. This was something of a roadtrip, but it was a very pleasant evening with good food and nice people. But we were all tired and ready to call it a day.
